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Peter Arenella

@arenella1

14 Oct

Many of my followers have asked me several related questions about subpoena enforcement when a witness refuses to comply with either a subpoena to testify[subpoena ad testificandum] or a subpoena to produce documents [subpoena duces tecum] Since I believe the House commission

2]investigating the Jan 6th insurrection has issued both types of subpoenas to Steve Bannon, I will use him as a concrete example to offer a simplified explanation about subpoena enforcement options. Lets start with the subpoena ordering Bannon to appear before the commission to

3]answer the members' questions. Bannon has a legal duty to appear before the committee but once he appears, he can and probably will assert his fifth am privilege not to respond to any govt question whose answer may incriminate him[this includes testimony to any fact that is not

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Peter Arenella

@arenella1

31 May

For those Americans who lost family members fighting in WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, this is a sacred day. My father was a Navy Lt. who commanded the landing craft used to storm beaches in WW2. He was badly wounded twice yet insisted on going back to his job.

2] I once asked him years ago why he kept returning to active service during the final days of the war against Japan: his answer "50-80% of the young soldiers in my landing crafts never made it to the shore. I needed to honor their sacrifice." Today, we have millions of our

3] citizens whining about mask mandates to protect the more vulnerable among us. And Flynn asking for another violent insurrection against our government. Before my father died from the collateral consequences of a bullet that damaged his lungs, he told me that he was disgusted

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Peter Arenella

@arenella1

29 May

In my lifetime, the Republican Party actually had principles and policies that were articulated explicitly in their convention platforms. Most of their domestic and foreign policies remained stable over decades including their antipathy towards Russia and the consequent need for

2] a strong military to deter Russian aggression. Now, this party's only goal appears to be the desire to thwart any policy goals of the Democratic Party so they can regain the Presidency. Now, they happily repeat Russian talking points while doing their best to enact anti

3]democratic legislation to make it more difficult for minorities to vote. In this context, Democrats should not be concerned with gaining bipartisan support and must enact legislation to end the filibuster rule. We currently have a one party system because the former Republican

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Peter Arenella

@arenella1

25 May

The following might seem counter-intuitive given the understandable relief most Biden supporters feel[myself included] after he defeated Trump and did such an excellent job making vaccines available for all American adults. However, three critical post-election actions by the

2] Republican Party and its most rabid followers suggest that the risk of losing our democracy is even greater now than before Biden's victory. First, the violent premeditated insurrection was designed to postpone the electoral count in Congress so Trump could declare martial law

3] Put simply, it was the first step of a violent coup to keep Trump in office. So far, our Justice Department has not been able to hold the king-makers behind this plot to defeat the will of the electorate accountable. The second critical series of actions involved the passage

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Peter Arenella

@arenella1

18 Aug 20

1]My colleague and good friend Kim Crenshaw has written an important essay in the New Republic that I am hoping you will share with your followers. Here is her conclusion: "These facts point us toward a troubling but essential fact: that the behavior of police inthe United States

2]has hardly been about law enforcement; its instead been about the protection of a very particular status quo. And that status quo is tied directly to the maintenance of the inferior status of Black people. It is a calculated legal institutionalization of white dominance that's

3]been kept in place for all of American history" I witnessed this oppression as a young Public Defender when I defended my minority clients in court and interviewed them in our jails and prisons. I then taught criminal law courses for almost 30 years in some of this nation's

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Peter Arenella

@arenella1

16 Jul 20

My only son, now 35, was born with brain damage as he was an undiagnosed breach baby[ex insisted on a midwife who was "anti technology"] who suffered severe anoxia at birth causing mild retardation. By the time he was 11, he was diagnosed with severe bi polar manic depression. I

2] offer these facts o explain why a criminal law professor, would be motivated to develop an expertise in child development theory. I spent years reading the relevant literature as well as consulting with some terrific child psychiatrists and clinical psychologists at UCLA.

3] As a result of my new expertise, I started to research and write about sociopathy and moral psychopaths. This background helped me realize why Trump had no difficulty lying constantly and suffered no cognitive dissonance when he would say X on one day, and the opposite of X

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